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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ruth 3:10 - 3:10
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Boaz praised her conduct: “Blessed be thou of the Lord, my daughter (see Rth 2:20); thou hast made thy later love better than the earlier, that thou hast not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. ” Ruth's earlier or first love was the love she had shown to her deceased husband and her mother-in-law (comp. Rth 2:11, where Boaz praises this love); the later love she had shown in the fact, that as a young widow she had not sought to win the affections of young men, as young women generally do, that she might have a youthful husband, but had turned trustfully to the older man, that he might find a successor to her deceased husband, through a marriage with him, in accordance with family custom (vid., Rth 4:10). “And now,” added Boaz (Rth 3:11), “my daughter, fear not; for all that thou sayest I will do to thee: for the whole gate of my people (i.e., all my city, the whole population of Bethlehem, who go in and out at the gate: see Gen 34:24; Deu 17:2) knoweth that thou art a virtuous woman.” Consequently Boaz saw nothing wrong in the fact that Ruth had come to him, but regarded her request that he would marry her as redeemer as perfectly natural and right, and was ready to carry out her wish as soon as the circumstances would legally allow it. He promised her this (vv. 12, 13), saying, “And now truly I am a redeemer; but there is a nearer redeemer than I. Stay here this night (or as it reads at the end of v. 13, 'lie till the morning'), and in the morning, if he will redeem thee, well, let him redeem; but if it does not please him to redeem thee, I will redeem thee, as truly as Jehovah liveth.” אִם כִּי (Kethibh, v. 12), after a strong assurance, as after the formula used in an oath, “God do so to me,” etc., 2Sa 3:35; 2Sa 15:21 (Kethibh), and 2Ki 5:20, is to be explained from the use of this particle in the sense of nisi, except that, = only: “only I am redeemer,” equivalent to, assuredly I am redeemer (cf. Ewald, §356, b.). Consequently there is no reason whatever for removing the אִם from the text, as the Masorites have done (in the Keri).
(Note: What the ל maju sc., in לִינִי signifies, is uncertain. According to the smaller Masora, it was only found among the eastern (i.e., Palestinian) Jews. Consequently Hiller (in his Arcanum Keri et Ctibh, p. 163) conjectures that they used it to point out a various reading, viz., that לַנִּי should be the reading here. But this is hardly correct.)
Ruth was to lie till morning, because she could not easily return to the city in the dark at midnight; but, as is shown in Rth 3:14, she did not stay till actual daybreak, but “before one could know another, she rose up, and he said (i.e., as Boaz had said), It must not be known that the woman came to the threshing-floor.” For this would have injured the reputation not only of Ruth, but also of Boaz himself.